The present invention relates to a refrigerator and a refrigerator door opening apparatus.
Generally, a refrigerator is a home appliance that can store food at low temperature in an internal storage space shielded by a door. To this end, the refrigerator is configured to keep the stored food in an optimal state by cooling the inside of the storage space using cool air generated through heat exchange with a refrigerant circulating in a refrigeration cycle.
Recently, refrigerators have become increasingly larger and multifunctional in accordance with trend of changes in dietary life and high quality of products, and refrigerators having various structures and convenience apparatuses, which may consider convenience of users and allow the efficient use of internal space, have been released.
The storage space of the refrigerators may be opened or closed by a door. The refrigerators may be classified into various types depending on the arrangement of the storage space and the structure of the door for opening and closing the storage space.
Also, the refrigerator door can be enlarged due to the increase in size of the refrigerator, and the door is often provided with a storage space. Thus, there is a problem in that it takes much effort to open the door.
Particularly, when a magnet is provided on a gasket on the rear surface of the door in order to prevent the leakage of cool air inside the door, there is a problem that may cause inconveniences in use because it takes much effort to open the door at an initial stage.
In order to solve such a problem, Korean Patent Publication No. 10-2012-0124693 discloses a refrigerator in which when a door handle is operated, an opening apparatus is operated so that the door can be opened more easily by pushing a cabinet.
However, such a conventional refrigerator has a structure in which the opening apparatus may protrude by a rotational operation distance of the handle. Therefore, in order to sufficiently secure the protruding distance for opening the door, the thickness of the opening apparatus may increases, thereby deteriorating heat insulating performance of the door. In addition, the opening apparatus is formed integrally with the door and cannot be attached to or detached from the door. Therefore, there is a problem in that the entire door needs to be separated or exchanged when an error occurs.